



" Dum tacent Clamant." 



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ORATION 



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BY 



Chas. Eugene Clark, 



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DECORATION DAY, 



Highland Cemetery, Covington, Ky. 



May 30, 1912. 



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Dum tacent Clamant." 



ORATION 



BY 



Chas. Eugene Clark, 

DECORATION DAY, 
Highland Cemetery, Covington, Ky. 

May 30, 1912. 



My Friends: 

We are met today in this beautiful court of peace, where rest 
in hallowed ground the beloved dead, to testify pursuant to an 
annual custom, the veneration of the living, for our departed 
loved ones, and especially to honor, so far as we can by our 
feeble efforts, the patriotic dead, the soldiers and sailors of the 
Union, who either died in battle for their country, or who having 
survived the horrors of war, have since been called hence to 
report "present" at the grand "roll-call" up yonder at the celestial 
reveille. 

While we are especially met to honor the dead, we have happily 
spared to us and their country, by the mercy of Almighty God, 
living representatives of the Grand Armies of the Union, who 
are gathered with us to assist us in these solemn ceremonies. 

And while they, too, testify their devotion and remembrance 
for their Comrades gone before, they are privileged to partake 
and experience the honor and veneration that awaits them, when 
they, too, shall have joined the great silent majority, and shall 
have been laid away by loving, tender hands in God's acre. 

My friends, these ceremonies are most fitting and appropriate. 
For it has ever been an evidence and badge of a noble humanity 
for the survivors of all enlightened nations and people to mourn 
and venerate the dead, and to show especial honors to those 
patriotic heroes who died in the service of their country. For 
when engaged in such appropriate ceremonies the living, while 
honoring the heroic dead, also dedicate themselves to the cause 
of their country, and thus enlarge their patriotism and deepen 
their spirit of veneration. 

While it is but natural that most men are patriotic, and are 
ever ready to do and dare at the call of their country in its hour of 
peril, yet often in the piping times of peace a people become care- 
less and indifferent to that finer sense of duty, the' due observance 
of which alone will perpetuate in its utmost purity, strength and 
vigor, their government and country, and enable it to serve and 
answer, in the largest measure, the purposes for which God hath 
fashioned it. And so we lay aside our ordinary business affairs 
on these days of national mourning and remembrance, and gather 
together at the graves of our beloved and heroic dead, and testify 
by our presence there, and by the solemn ceremonies that we 
hold there, our appreciation of them, of their sacrifices, and 
pledge our fealty and dedicate ourselves anew to the cause for 
which they died. 

When we come to consider the mutations of government, 
and the struggle that has ever been made by all peoples, and 
especially by our own to attain that happy form of government 
and measure of freedom which we, as a nation, now and have 



enjoyed for the last past 136 years, it is especially meet and fitting 
that we recount and venerate the sacrifices that have been made 
by our fellow countrymen during the various struggles in our 
national life and history. 

The founders of this nation conceived high ideals of govern- 
ment, instituted and established to serve and bless the governed, 
bringing to them the largest possible liberty consistent with law 
and order, and the well being of society. 

We were the natural inheritors of all the constitutional rights 
of the English people when we were colonists of Great Britain, 
including the rights and liberties secured to us under Magna 
Charta, the Bill of Rights, the Petition of Rights and all other 
constitutional guarantees under the English Crown. 

The denial of many of these sacred guarantees caused our 
forefathers to rebel from the mother country and lead to the 
battles of the Revolution, and to our ultimate independence. 
Manv patriots fell in establishing our independence. 

After a few years of peace this nation was again forced to 
draw the sword and invoke the God of battles in the war of 1812, 
and establish anew our rights as a free and independent nation, 
to pursue our happiness and destiny as a member of the family 
of nations, circumscribing and squaring our actions only by the 
dictates of conscience and the law of nations. In the struggle, 
before the triumph of our cause and the declaration of peace, 
many patriots gave their lives for their country. 

In the battles with the savages of the forests and prairies, and 
in the Mexican war, many more names were emblazoned on the 
rolls of the country's heroes, and many of these patriots lie in 
unnamed and forgotten graves and in a foreign land. 

Then came our great Civil War, which for full four years 
threatened our very existence as a nation, rent asunder our land 
from the lakes to the gulf, and from ocean to ocean, and in 
which struggle countless battles were fought wherein more than 
two millions of men were engaged, brother striving with brother, 
citizen with citizen, each for the right as he saw it, wherein count- 
less treasure was expended and tens of thousands of homes made 
desolate, while countless graves (lotted the land throughout its 
length and breadth. 

In this mighty struggle the high ideals for which our fore- 
fathers had labored, and for which our patriots had died, and 
on which humanity was depending, were well night lost. But 
by reason of the heroic efforts and sacrifices that were made 
by the government and the loyal people of the Union, and the 
undying deeds and prodigies of valor that were performed in 
the struggle, victory under the providence of God crowned the 
Union armies, and the swords were again fashioned into reaping 
hooks and other utensils of peace. 

The countless heroes of this war, from both North and South 
— for we fought with a valiant foe — have emblazoned the history 

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and adorned the annals of our common country, and their deeds 
of valor will be rehearsed and sung so long as our nation shall 
endure, and though we differed in this great fratricidal strife, 
both the Blue and the Gray covered themselves with imperishable 
glory by their struggles and sacrifices in this greatest of all civic 
wars, and their heroism has arched the heavens from North to 
South with the rainbow of valor, circumscribing our common 
country, and guaranteeing its future hope and security, patriotism 
and peace. 

In our endeavor to force the Spanish government to treat 
and deal humanely with its American possessions we were com- 
pelled to fight the Spanish-American war, and other heroes were 
added to our long and illustrious roll of patriots, and a new era 
was opened in our national life, when as the result of the fortunes 
of war we were compelled to take under our protecting power 
and flag, foreign peoples and possessions, and bring to them our 
ideals of government and civilization, and fit them for such self- 
government as will enable them to take their place among the 
civilized nations of the earth. 

Because Shakespeare not only sorrowed, but rejoiced, he is 
called greater than Dante, who only sorrowed. 

And so, though our country passed through the unspeakable 
horrors of fours years of Civil War, yet this cruel war redeemed 
the land from the curse of human slavery, clarified our political 
atmosphere of such heresies that had attacked our national life, 
and brought a better and fuller understanding between all sec- 
tions, and made us again a united people, one and inseparable. 

The ravages of the Civil War have practically long since been 
forgotten, new generations have been bom in the near half cen- 
tury that has passed since the thunder of battle has died away 
among the hills, and fields of carnage dyed with patriotic blood 
have brought forth abundantly the harvests of peace to bless 
and sustain a united country. 

And as the fields that were once trampled with battle, satu- 
rated with blood, torn with the ruts of cannon, have again 
grown green, and show now only the blazonry and bloom of 
peace, so the hearts of men once torn with strife and contention 
have been washed of all bitterness, schisms have been forgotten, 
and a new nation has been born, whose only rivalry of section is 
that of high endeavor and noble enterprise. 

This happy condition was had only at a fearful cost. 

"But then God gives no value unto men 

Unmatched by meed of labor. 
And cost of worth has always been 

The closest neighbor. 
For from lowly woe springs lordly joy, 

From humbler good, diviner. 
The greater life must aye destroy, 

And drink the minor." 



To those who fought, all honor ; their names and their achieve- 
ments will forever stand among the imperishable glories of their 
country, and will be venerated so long as patriotism is counted 
a virtue. 

And so to you of the Grand Army, both living and dead, a 
grateful nation this day does homage — and all honor. It ac- 
knowledges by the memorial services this day held for its hallowed 
dead, and by the words of laudation of you and their achieve- 
ments and sacrifices for the Republic, its undying attestation and 
appreciation of that spirit of patriotism and consecration to duty 
that led you forth to do and die for your country. 

"And so fair womanhood in all its grace; 

Proud manhood in its regal prime; 
Sweet childhood with its angelic face, 

And age with crown of silver prime. 
Controlled by love's resistless sway, 

And guided by her 'heavenly powers, 
Goes out to celebrate the day, 

And glorify the graves with flowers." 

"And though, Comrades, many the changes since last you met, 
Faces have brightened and tears have been wept, 
And though friends have been scattered like roses in bloom, 
Some at the bridal — most at the tomb." 

You may rest assured that as time shall speed us on with 
the efflux of years that this nation will ever hold you in kindly 
remembrance. Your heroic deeds shall remain imperishable in 
the hearts and traditions of your ever grateful countrymen. By 
your devotion to liberty and the cause of country and humanity 
you have attested the truth of the sentiment, "that each brave 
soldier has his war cry." With one it may be home ; another, 
country : a third, mankind ; that each follows the same standard, 
that of duty; for each the same divine law reigns, that of self 
sacrifice; that to learn to love something more than one's self is 
the secret of all that is great. To live for others is the aim of 
all noble souls. And as peace hath her battles and' victories 
as well as those of war, it behooves us as citizens of this Republic, 
if we would prove ourselves worthy of our birthright, and would 
perpetuate the blessings of a free and enlightened government 
"of the people, for the people and by the people," to our posterity, 
that we shall live up to our opportunity, recognize the responsi- 
bilities of government that go with the duty and dignity of citizen- 
ship, proclaim the sovereignty and majesty of the law, respect 
the inalienable rights and liberties of mankind, the work for 
that peace and prosperity that shall bless our common country 
with happiness and plenty, and make for its general weal, so 
then shall we be able to echo that proud boast of Livy, "that we 
are a nation of law as well as of men." 

So, then, shall we recognize that "justice is the bread of the 
nation, that it is always hungry for it, and that it is the insurance 

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we have upon our lives and property, and that obedience is the 
price we pay for it." 

To achieve this happy condition, we must practice for our- 
selves and inculcate in the rising generation those grand tenets 
of ethics, government and religion, that will make of us men and 
women of irreproachable character and standing, pure and 
patriotic, just and generous, virtuous and forgiving, and make us 
fully conscious of the greatness and goodness of God, and of the 
blessings which we and they may enjoy under His divine favor. 

We must inculcate in our daily life and character those virtues 
which admonish us to lead pure and honorable lives, which tend 
to peace on earth, and good will towards men, and that develop 
in both ourselves and the society around us all that is best, most 
fit and perfect, that apply our talents to the creation of works 
of beauty, grandeur and art, which in turn shall lift the lowly 
and degraded, educate the barbarian, enthuse the learned and 
sanctify the saint. 

We must learn and teach the lessons of humanity, humility 
and love, the virtues of patience and obedience, the dignity and 
worth of labor, acquire self-command, and learn to triumph 
«jver adversity. 

For then shall we acquire and inculcate those cardinal virtues 
which in truth lie at the foundation of all good and true govern- 
ment and society. As we shall love our neighbor as ourself, 
and do unto others as we would that they should do unto us, 
so shall we make it possible for the establishment of the home 
and family, and the prevalence of such doctrines as protect the 
weak against the strong, .and make for the existence of free and 
enlightened government and communities of happy and con- 
tented peoples. 

If we will so interpret our conduct we shall ever per- 
petuate our country and its glorious institutions to bless man- 
kind, and we, together with our posterity, shall enjoy the full 
compliment of noble lives, replete with duties fulfilled, high aims, 
lofty aspirations and holy pleasures. 

For we shall then elevate the better above the grosser man, 
and obtain those high ideals in government, in national and 
domestic life, that shall redound to greatest usefulness and glory, 
and lead to and make for a most worthy civilization — one that 
shall long live in the annals of mankind, and prove most worthy 
of emulation. 

While striving for God and country may we ever prove worthy 
of that land and those ideals for which Washington fought and 
Lincoln died. 

Chas. Eugene Clark. 
Decoration Day, May 30, 1912. 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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